Water scarcity, national security and the dire need for hydro-diplomacy

Water covers 70 percent of our planet, and it is easy to assume that it will always be plentiful. On the contrary, fresh water reservoirs, which constitute 3 percent of the world’s water, are deemed fit for human consumption and used for irrigation. Two-thirds of this freshwater is tucked away in glaciers.
Availability and access to safe water is a basic human right that connects every aspect of life. In today’s world, 844 million people are living without access to safe water, which means one in nine people. A water crisis is a health crisis. Every 90 seconds a child dies from a water-related disease. One million people die every year because of water, sanitation and hygiene-related diseases. Access to safe water means the opportunity for improved health and the ability to help fight diseases.
Many of the water systems that keep the ecosystem thriving have become stressed out. To meet the demands of the growing human population, rivers, lakes and aquifers are drying up or becoming polluted by pesticides and fertilizers. Seventy percent of the world’s accessible freshwater is used in agriculture; however, 60 percent of this precious water source is lost owing to leaky irrigation systems.
Climate change is further exacerbating the precarious situation by altering the water and weather patterns around the globe, causing droughts and water shortages in some parts of the world but floods in the others.
If the current patterns were to continue, the situation is expected to get worse. By 2025, two-thirds of the world’s population may not have access to water.
Over the past two decades, the international science and development communities have been referring to the emergence of a global water crisis, which can turn into a security threat for many nations around the globe.

Shortage of water is undermining economic growth, limiting food production and becoming an increasing threat to peace in many parts of the world.

Dr. Mehreen Mujtaba

Beyond the compelling human health and security reason for paying more attention to water security, there’s the issue of national security. Water scarcity is undermining economic growth, limiting food production and becoming an increasing threat to peace and security in many regions of the world. A recent report by the National Intelligence Council, “Global Trends, Paradox of Progress,” said “more than 30 countries around the world, mostly in the Middle East, will experience extremely high water stress by 2035, increasing economic, social and political tensions.”
Water resources have exacerbated the tension between Pakistan and India. The Indus Water Treaty (IWT) is a 56-year-old, transboundary water accord between Pakistan and India to manage the vast Indus River and its tributaries. However, on Sept. 22, 2016, amid escalating tensions between the two countries, India’s foreign minister’s cryptic threat that New Delhi could revoke the IWT between the two countries was countered by Sartaj Aziz, foreign affairs adviser to the then Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, as a threat which could be perceived as an act of war.
In an assumed scenario, if India were to carry out the threat of canceling the IWT, the outcome could be much more far-reaching and harmful, with deleterious effects on ordinary Pakistanis, than a limited war. In some areas of the country, southern Punjab and Sindh, Indus is the sole source of water for human consumption and agriculture.
According to the International Monetary Fund, Pakistan is one of the most water-stressed countries in the world, where agriculture consumes 90 percent of the rapidly decreasing water resources. That makes Pakistan’s economy one of the most water-intensive in the world. Hence it is not erroneous to assume that if Pakistan’s access to water from Indus were reduced or cut off, the implications for the country’s population health and water security could be catastrophic.
Water stewardship by the successive governments, which includes water management, its conservation and efficient use, should be a top priority in a country such as Pakistan, where the inertia of successive governments to rectify the deteriorating situation could lead to serious socioeconomic implications. Water security is synonymous with national security. Hence, it is imperative for the government to accord due priority to the water sector because of its direct implication for the health of the population and economy of the country, whether it’s the agriculture or the industrial sectors.
Given the dire straits, hydro-diplomacy and water security must become more central to our foreign policy.
The international community can develop effective hydro-diplomacy tools to focus on high-risk, high-consequence water problems in strategic basins to pre-empt troubles down the road.
Countries in different regions should advance water data sharing and collection to understand risks before they assume mammoth proportions of violent conflicts and mass migrations. For this purpose a well-collaborated early-warning system network with correlated regional and local climate and weather data can help countries predict and plan for a water-related crisis.